Stranger in the land
by Danny Barefoot
Summary: From I Am David, by Anne Holm. Vigettes and monologues from the social-outcast's fairytale. David's escaping a concentration camp. He's twelve, and the outside is as alien to him as a city on Mars. How many writers could make black spiky fluff from that?
1. left between

_ If you haven't read the book, you can skip to the note at the bottom for a little background, or, if you wish, read through in suspense._

The boys were playing soldiers again today. I didn't even ask to join in.

Papa told us how everything would be as it was before. Just as it was before David came into it. From where he came from, to me…ah, the leap of joy, wistfulness sharp at the edges. I don't want it to be like that never happened! But it's no fun, moping round the house all the time, and after a few days none of the boys even felt a bit strange. Andre actually said that, he felt _a bit strange_ now David had gone somewhere! He asked once if Mama and Papa would find where David was now, and Cecha asked if we could ever visit David–almost a scary idea–but now their all just as loud, tumbling and thoughtless as all boys are. Sometimes, I don't think David could've been a boy–he was so quiet, and thought over the very movements of his body. Even when he was at his freest, racing and playing ball with Andre–nearly always winning–I wasn't jealous at all, honestly. He was always watchful, and so careful, till we were on our own…

Papa gave me a long talk, the day after David went. He said I mustn't dwell over the last months, because David probably wouldn't come back. I said, _of course_ David will, he said he would. Papa said, did he said he would, or he would if he could? He didn't know that nothing could stop David coming back. But Papa and Mama made him go, he told me that last night, when he didn't smile, and I just let him turn away…but he's like the sea, the bare, heaving, grey-green sea in his eyes. Nothing imaginable could hold him, or turn him away. I couldn't have done anything, but ask if he might please come back, even if it was years later, even I'd finally given in to happiness and laughter without him, a raw, naked spot in my soul would last, and still fit his touch.

And he said he'd think of me, his eyes seemed still, but rolled with sorrow underneath, pleading…I wish he'd smiled, but he said 'always', hardly needing to think then. I could maybe make him be happy sometimes, it was marvellous to feel that, but terrible when he seemed immovably grim, though it was only ever seeming–if the world was grey to him, what hope did we have? I only just thought of giving him the crucifix, and it's wonderful to know an image of Jesus, from me, is with David.

I pretend I'm talking to David sometimes, go back over the unbounded minutes I told him about everything they didn't seem to have where he came from, like school, and bathroom stuff, Great-Grandparents, nearly all the furniture, told him and listened to his voice, but I can't bring him back. His face, clearly, his strength (that glowed in him), dimly, his smile, maybe just a tiny bit, but never the…_unexpectedness_ of him, that marvellously and faintly terrifying way of looking at things, that went so suddenly, that came from the blue, into the fire, that made the world so much sharper than it seemed before, with such different thoughts from any I'd heard of. Mama had said people were all good at heart, and Papa told Carlo once a man has to stand up to anyone who insults him. David wanted nothing to do with Carlo, he did his best to get on with the others, but poor Carlo repelled him. I distracted him the best I could, but there it was. David didn't come to Carlo, and with the things he told me about, his coming to me just once or twice stuck in my throat.

It was great and ineffable, yes, but wonderful, most of all when I put the gramophone on for him (Something else he'd never had). Since Mama dragged me into this concert, with dozens of men in suits who never smiled, and where you sat still for _hours_, I've never liked music. But it would seem a minute, seeing his face transformed to something worshipful and emotion racked, like a stone image of Jesus coming alive. Thundering with silent tempests, or washing over with sunlight, as the music changed. Those emerging moments, it would kill me to tear my mind from, even sat here now, with the servants laying out supper in the next room, Carlo sat over his homework, Andre just sitting. The house just goes on as it has, as if nothing special had happened. Maybe no one ever realised apart from me.

One of the times it makes me happy to remember was when Cecha asked David what elephants looked like close up, since he'd told them all he came from a circus. It was the first time he ever looked uncertain, and he didn't answer at once–he never said anything, thought, without thinking it out. It was like he'd had to learn what people did, like doing and talking about ordinary things was strange to him.

"Was it a circus without animals, David, with just clowns, acrobats and jugglers?" I said.

"Yes, that's right." And when Cecha looked away, David looked at me with gratitude. I couldn't believe I'd done something to help this boy, who only looked like a boy, seemed at times a mysterious force, and listened attentively to what clowns, acrobats and jugglers were! It felt rich and dizzy, and then he smiled…

I've seen the sea, and liked it, but David was _there_ in my world, walking with me, smiling when he held me–cool and gentle, sudden as a storm, but filling me with peace, while he was round me, smiling _for me_, that shone from it, all the barriers down to his soul. I can't say how the smile was wonderful, that was its magic, maybe not even David could. I saw that when I took his hand the first time; gratitude yes, and uncertainty of just how it was wonderful–he did love it so much, what drew him to me. It seemed I had only to speak or move, when I smiled, he drank and drank like a baby unstoppably gulping life. I felt really special, and for a few months I was what I was to David, all through. Anything he'd hungered inside for, I'd have given.

He had it all anyway, from the moment I saw his brown chest through smoke, he held my feet to stillness, and my stinging, smarting eyes found his. I could feel the heat all round (Just imagine the heat of the fire when it touched you!), my thoughts but fading steam, scattered by coughing. I'm sure, looking back, I'd have died. Except David took me out of the fire, even within it he cooled and calmed me. Then the grass outside, and the smile of pure joy…I'd never seen him before, there can't be anything else like him to see, and I cannot but imagine him merged with the wind and the earth when I wonder where he went. I wonder that a lot of the time. But I'm still here…he took me out, holding me, and he held onto me all those months–even if he told me of things I wish weren't true, all the smiles, laughter and hand-clasps in me were his to draw into himself, wonderfully…

I haven't laughed, or felt really free, since David had to go. I feel empty inside, like a balloon after a party.

_Note: Maria is a gorgeous eleven-year old from a rich Italian family, David is twelve, homeless, and has spent the best part of his life in a Bulgarian concentration camp. I'd have to replicate the book to say why he moves on. The date? 1960's I'd say, but the book leaves it ambiguous._


	2. mothers begin

_Hello people, plot points at the end for those that want them, as before. This is immediately after the book ends._

  "Mother…people are watching us."

  Her eyes opened to him under pools of tears. His cheeks sparkling, mouth shaking, lips flickering upwards.

  She stood up, and David heard flashes of laughter through her howled-out words, before she broke down again. The people in their gardens stayed silent.

  David looked at the garden, his mother's garden, the lovely trees with their bright trunks. For the first time, their beauty seemed unimportant–David couldn't have travelled another step, but carried his mother's full weight without effort.

  Without the least consideration, his arms were around her. Her breath was a tempest round his ears.

  David felt his feet leave the steps as his mother wrapped her arms round his legs, and lifted him through the door, into the house. Her other hand had already been on his neck, and David was sure the fingers wouldn't leave his hair. He gazed up at the patterned white ceiling, the paper-shaded light in the middle. Though still sobbing, she could carry him safely–she was his mother. David couldn't have moved his feet for risk of missing a fraction of this joy.

  His mother carried David through to the kitchen, and laid him in a chair, kneeling beside it with a smile. Then she sobbed again, looked at the floor, and cleared her throat.

  "Signora Del Varchi cried…because Maria was alive." Another surfeit of bright, warm, blessed tears flowed on both sides without guilt. Thinking of Maria's mother struck a slight discord in David's inner symphony of happiness, but only very slight. His joy was too big to hold all at once, growing from within as the faint shapes of material causes and realisations flickered from within. There was a jar of flowers in the window! And his mother didn't look like Maria's at all when she cried–the grief had real power, grown over years, and the joy had grown strong too on fighting it back, inch by inch. Now grief was being thrown from her soul, and the time of sorrow had ended. Could _they_ be fought back, like bad feelings inside yourself? Strange thought.

  There was one chair at the table, with a plate, glass, and cutlery. David noticed they were round the wrong way, and switched the knife and fork. His mother gave a little choking laugh, and David let his face move.

  "You smiled! David."

  His mother was holding him close again, making little sounds of love. David smelt wide open skies in the air within her cardigan, and smiled on into her shoulder.

  "Please…can I go and do something?"

  "David, stay here."

  "I'm sorry!" David couldn't imagine what he'd been thinking–taking anything from his mother's happiness, just to something for himself. His smile left as suddenly as they always had, then they were hugging and sobbing all over again, and they both knew how much they loved the other. Inwardly surprised David gave his mother another smile, as proudly and shyly as he might've a shown her a rugby trophy.

  "David…my son…you were tiny, with apple cheeks." Hopeless years of making a dead husband and baby a part of herself flickered and ended in her eyes. "You look wonderful, my darling."

  "I'm David, mother…My dear." He hadn't heard her yet speak a sentence without his name in, and he knew that she had know before he ever spoke, but he wanted to say, and she smiled again. He wasn't sure sons said 'my dear' to mothers, but wanted very much to talk like people did with families. All the Del Varchi children said 'mother', but David had just too much catching up to mess around.

  "Do you want something to eat, David? Or to talk, though we'll have to go to someone who speaks better French than me…?"

  "I didn't know! Is English better?" His mother nodded, not at all surprised. "I'd like to say thank you to God. Oh, mother, I'm sorry, but he kept me safe coming back to you…dear mother, please don't cry."

  "My wonderful boy," her head rose from her arm, "Yes, let us thank God then." David held his mother's hand more tightly–she had never stopped touching him; with a hand not as soft as Maria's, but stronger, warm, and sending thrills up his arm as it moved–and closed his eyes.

  "God of the Green Pastures and Still Waters. Thank you for being with me, keeping me safe, and leading me here…home, to my mother. Thank you for the dog, King, and thank you for Maria…that she showed me how to smile. Thank you that I met Signora Bang. And the Swiss Lorry Driver, the Italian Sailor, all the people who helped me. Thank you for letting me escape the farm, and that Johannes went with to Salonica. Thank you for giving me the courage to hitch lifts. I don't know what I can do to for you to equal this, but belonging…means more than life, freedom, or beauty. I'm glad I chose you, God. I am David. Amen."

  "God," His mother prayed in English, "Of Green Pastures….thank you for keeping my son safe, and bringing him back to me. Bless Sophie Bang and all the people David talked of…bless them to the nines, Lord. Thank you, with all my heart, but that left for David. Tell his father what a beautiful boy his son is. And sorry that I stopped trusting and pushed you away, but, now–I have to believe. Amen."

  She looked up, nervousness peering round her eyes. David squeezed her hand still harder.

  "Mother, I stopped trusting God as well. When…I don't want to talk about it now, but I'm sorry for it." David felt ashamed, but couldn't spoil the moment for either of them.

  "Where did you learn about God, David?"

  "Johannes…he looked after me, told me some things, but I chose my God myself. I should've said sorry to God, just then."

  "You've nothing to be sorry for, my David. With everything that's happened to you…" David didn't want her seeing the twelve year millennia in his eyes, so he thought of Maria, the sea and hearing laughter. As his mother stood up, she might've seen past the grinning, utterly contented child, to the old man returned to a childhood he'd never had. And David remembered she was his mother and he needn't be afraid of that.

  "Shall I get you something to eat then? Maybe stories later."

  "Yes, tell me about yourself. Please–about what you do. And can I come with you for the food?"

  "Johannes certainly taught you politeness. Come on, then. We'll both get ourselves some sandwiches and a hot drink."

  _We.__ Ourselves. Us. _The words echoed round David's head like strokes of a bell. Both of them walked across the kitchen like people in a dream, hand in hand.

  David only thought now to see what his mother looked like. She was wearing a long brown skirt, and her hair was dark brown and wavy, her eyes green. Her teeth were slightly crooked, and her face had a healthy reddish tone. She was tall, and David thought she looked beautiful. There was a reason he scarcely ever noted these details in anyone save Maria. Her smile took him further it a second, than ninety minutes of Mozart, and everything about her spoke of love that would give itself to stop anyone hurting him…yes, it was a beautiful world, where every boy not born in a camp had such a blessing. He had seen it in the photo; she could take his pain and fear, smile for him, and drown it all in the sea.

  As his mother placed two mugs on the worktop, with near-comic delicacy, David looked at her to make sure it was alright, and stepped out the back door, keeping it open. He looked up into the blue sky, and the distant path along the cliffs. Something pressed at his leg, and he leapt back–the cat mewled in annoyance, and stalked away a couple of strides. David stayed quite still. The cat, which was tubby and marmalade-coloured, strolled back in his direction. David remembered King running up to lick his face, but it moved like nothing he'd seen.

  "He likes being stroked behind his ears." His mother called. Hesitantly, David crouched, and stoked, "Just with one finger, the sensitive, hairless place." David knew when he'd found it–the cat pressed to his haunch, and its purr lifted his soul even further.

  "You've made her happy, David. Ariel loves you too."

  David looked back to the kitchen, from the sun-covered grass. With a last careful pat for Ariel, he walked back into the house himself. Thee buildings, of himself, and including the church, seemed reasonable for twelve years. And he didn't think he'd need to enter more houses, not soon. The kettle was humming pleasantly.

  "We could start talking now, if you want to, mother."

  "David…you surely don't want to hear an unhappy story so soon?"

  "I don't think any story can be completely unhappy." David knew he could be wrong, but his mother smiled, and held him again, not to make sure he was solid, but as if she loved feeling his warmth. David realised he'd been smiling for minutes on his end, and salt cracked on his cheeks when he spoke. He kept smiling.

  The misery in the camp had felt incapable of ending. If this ended tomorrow, David knew there was a hope; something that filled a minute and two statement with a joyous eternity.

_  David, we know. His father was either murdered or imprisoned by the Bulgarian Communist party, his mother got out of the country, settling in Denmark. After eleven years, Mrs Fengel's son turns up on her doorstep, having hiked across Europe, miraculously crossed paths with someone who knew his mother, and looked her address up in the directory. Possibly Mrs Holm was wiser to end with the two statements._


End file.
